Jaden’s birth – the details

I’m going to try to avoid the “gory” details, as my sweet husband put it. But I do want to tell my labor and delivery story, for those of you who are interested.

My labors with Caleb and Ava were very similar to one another – woke up with contractions, timed them for an hour or so, went to the hospital, got the epidural, had the baby. It took 5-6 hours TOTAL, from the first contraction to the baby’s birth. So, that’s what I expected this time as well.

It didn’t really turn out that way.

We started timing contractions on Thursday night around 7pm. During dinner. The contractions weren’t as close together as my previous labors, so we just timed them and waited. All night.

We ate dinner, put the kids to bed, did our devos…all the normal things. Then I started cleaning – vacuuming, doing the dishes, washing windows. Then we watched two episodes of The Office online. All the while, timing away.

Eventually, I got incredibly frustrated that it was taking SO LONG compared to the last two labors. And though the contractions were getting pretty strong, they didn’t seem to be consistent at all. Seven minutes apart, then two minutes, then ten minutes, and so on. (For those of you who haven’t had babies, you want the contractions to become “longer, stronger, and closer together.” With Caleb and Ava, my contractions were consistently around three minutes apart by the time I got to the hospital.)

So, Luke and I tried to get some rest. Let me rephrase; Luke fell fast asleep, and I rested in between contractions. Since I had no idea if or when we’d actually need to go to the hospital, I wanted him to be able to get some sleep. Meanwhile, I took a bath.

Finally, I got so frustrated that I decided to call the doctor. It was about 4am by then, so I’d been timing contractions for 9 hours already. I explained to the doctor that I was 12 days overdue and having strong, inconsistent contractions. Then I asked him if I could just come in to the hospital, get an epidural, and have them break my water. When he found out I was 12 days late and didn’t even have an induction scheduled, he said I could come on in. I couldn’t help but exclaim, “Praise the Lord!” And then when I hung up the phone, I cried from sheer relief that there was an end in sight!

So, I woke up Luke, and he called his mom to tell her to come (to stay with the kids). And then he called our wonderful neighbor friend to come sit on the couch until his mom could get here from Indiana. (Thank you, Michele and MomR!) When Michele got here, we were on our way.

When we got to the hospital, I asked right away for an epidural. The nurse checked me, and I was dilated to 5cm. I was so relieved to find out that all those contractions were actually DOING something! So, the doctor okayed the epidural, but the bad news was that the anesthesiologist was busy attending a c-section and wouldn’t be available for at least an hour.

So, we got all set up in our room with our FABULOUS nurses, and waited. And waited. It ended up being more like 2-1/2 hours from the time we got to the hospital to the time I actually got the epidural. (The downside to delivering at St. Mary’s – I always have to wait what seems like forever to get the epidural.) But since my contractions were still very inconsistent, I had a lot of rest time in between contractions. So the wait was do-able.

After I got the epidural, we waited a little while to let it kick in (which it did, and I didn’t feel a single contraction from that point on). And then a resident came in and broke my water. And then I took a nice, 45-minute nap.

I woke up pretty suddenly and said to Luke, “I think we’d better page the nurse.” And in walked our doctor! She checked me, said I was complete, and 20 minutes later, Jaden was born! It sounds quick – and it was! That’s not to say it wasn’t hard work, but I’m thankful for the way it went!

Recovery has gone incredibly well, too, and we are so very thankful for this new gift of life that God has given our family!